Land allocations at less than 50%
6 months towards 100k targetDeadline for applications for secure land titles this month
Land Boards are at the halfway mark towards achieving the ambitious presidential target of allocating 100 000 plots by end of next year March. So far, the total allocations from April to mid- September 2022 is 28 307 and still ongoing. Botswana Association of Tribal Land Authorities ( BATLA) President, Johane Chanjekwa told Botswana Guardian that this performance will be enhanced through the recently available layouts which comprises 65 316 plots to be allocated by December 2022. He further explained that the balance of the plots will be covered by the ongoing allocations yet to be reported. Chanjekwa further said the Ministry has undertaken efforts in terms of the realigning and streamlining activities at Land Board levels to rationalise available resources to ensure that manpower is re- aligned to deliver on the new Government priorities. “Land Boards have since undertaken to increase the frequency of their sittings to increase allocations. There is also concerted efforts to increase publicity in order to increase the level of attendance by applicants during Board Sittings,” he said in an interview. Although the 100 000 plots target seems a tall order to have allocated across the 12 Land Boards countrywide by March 2023, Chenjekwa is confident that it is achievable. To arrive at the set target, he explains that Government established a Cabinet Sub Committee to look into accelerating land allocations, which resulted in the prioritisation of cross Ministerial functions in the land delivery process. That is, layouts from Councils, Strategic Environmental Assessments, outsourcing Surveys, among others. “With the agreed prioritisation, Land Boards
were able to make target estimations from the readily available prepared layouts which is achievable,” he said. In addition, the Ministry, in conjunction with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, worked together to accelerate development of new detailed layouts from areas identified for acquisition for village expansion. This enabled the 12 Land Boards to determine the cumulative number of plots that could be allocated during the 2022/ 2023 Financial year hence the target of 100 624 plots. Chenjekwa, who is also Chobe Land Board Chair says the target is achievable because at the beginning of the 2022/ 23 Financial Year, the Land Boards reported having 32 498 residential plots readily available for allocation. To date, 28 307 plots have been allocated. The main challenges observed however, according to Chenjekwa is that most individuals who could potentially be allocated were found to already own land. “Additionally, in some areas within Kgalagadi, Ghanzi, Chobe and Rolong Land Boards’ jurisdictions, the waiting lists have been exhausted and have excess plots awaiting new applicants,” he said. He is convinced that come March end 2023, the target would be achieved because the different Land Authorities submitted a list of detailed layouts that contained the locations and number of plots in each layout. This indicated that there were 109 detailed layouts that have been approved by the different District Councils, containing a cumulative 63 126 plots. The Ministry has decided to outsource these detailed layouts so that the plots will be ready for immediate allocation in November and December 2022. He added that there were also layouts that were submitted by the different Land Boards after they did their in- house surveying. These 7 487 plots are expected to be allocated end of October 2022. Another enabler towards the attainment of the set target is the human resource capacity to deliver in the different Land Board. Chenjekwa acknowledged that Land Boards have expressed their human resources requirements to the Ministry of Lands and Water Affairs, which is currently working on restructuring and rationalisation of existing human resources. “All Land Boards are expected to optimally utilise existing human resources without necessarily compromising service delivery to clients,” Chenjekwa said. He explained that in view of Government’s position to freeze the expansion of the public service, the Land Boards are trying their best to rationalise existing staff and have opted to undertake resource pooling to address issues of staff shortages, as well as optimising the National Internship Programme and Tirelo Sechaba to augment where there are staff shortages. According to Chenjekwa, the Land Boards staff complement currently stands at 1 864 with about 80 vacancies across the country. They have observed that frequent staff turnover occurs in specialties such as legal personnel, land survey and finance disciplines, as there is intense competition with the private sector as far as these professions are concerned. In order to address this, Chenjewa said the Ministry utilises the National Internship Programme to augment staff where critical shortages occur. The other option has been the outsourcing of some of the works to the private sector so as to remove bottlenecks in service delivery, as well as rationalisation of available staff to areas or offices that have critical shortages. “The Ministry is actively filling in existing vacancies to deal with shortages in staff in priority areas,” he told Botswana Guardian. Currently, the most common or popular service requested for at the different Boards is application for Customary Land Rights, that is, applications for residential plots.
While many Batswana still complain that they have waited for as long as 20 years and even more to be allocated land, Chenjekwa said the service standard is set at three months upon availability of land ready for allocation once the Land Boards receive surveyed plots from the Department of Surveys and Mapping. “However, most Land Boards are dealing with backlogs in applications with varying magnitudes given that there is shortage of land readily available for demarcation, and so currently the turnaround time is undeterminable,” Chenjekwa added.
Some Land Boards like Chobe, Rolong, Kgalagadi and Ghanzi have had some areas with no waiting lists and have been able to readily allocate plots from within 24hrs to a week.
The second most common service requested throughout the Land Boards is applications for transfers. According to Chenjekwa, the current challenges in allocating land in the different Land Boards include, high demand for land in Peri- urban areas for which there is insufficient supply; land acquisition as land owners are not always agreeable with the compensation rates; low turn up of applicants during land allocations, which inherently leads to delays in allocation of available plots and costs associated with frequent Board Sittings. There is also limited financial resources for prolonged board sittings; return of plots due the options presented by the national allocations and lack of applicants to be allocated available plots in some of the Land Boards which might affect the attainment of the annual target. Another issue of discontent among members of the public has been the October 2022 deadline set for landowners to have registered their plots. As at September 20, 2022, the 12 Land Boards have received a total of 203 258 applications for Secure Land Titles. Chenjekwa explained that the applications are being sorted and processed as received in readiness for lodgment with the Deeds Registry Office.
“Based on the available records at the Land Boards, there are a total of 831 806 allocated plots across the country that will need to be issued with the new certificates.” So far, the Ministry has not taken a decision on the sanctions that will be put in place after October 20, 2022.
“The public will be duly informed if there is an extension of this deadline or if any sanctions will be preferred, if need be,” Chenjekwa said, adding that the Tribal Land Act, 2018 states that where a person refuses or fails to submit application for registration, the Land Board is empowered to register the grant at Deeds Registry. “Batswana should register their plots to update their records for processing of secure land title, this should be considered in the same light as Know Your Clients ( KYC) required in other sectors,” Chenjekwa said.